U niversity
of
O regon M on th ly
neighbors towards her husband. She ■ did not know that sinister
reports had spread throughout the vicinity.
Tommy Minor had not neglected to tell his parents about the
young man who deliberately rode away from the poor woman whom
so many friends- were trying to find, j Encouraged by the outspoken
opinion of his parents, the boy took delight in repeating the story
to a41 he knew. Gossip, particularly when one's reputation is to
suffer, does not rely for sustenance upon the person who starts it,
nor does the story Remain ever the same. :Some people even heard
and repeated an account of “A man who threw his mother-in-law
into the river and watched her drown.”
So it happened that; Montgomery’s;'acquaintances treated him
Coldly. They-glanced at him suspiciously. They whispered to one
another and shook their heads. Only, John Ball seemed cordial, but
it was with a very significant look that he said once: • -
> “Well, Ronald, it’s a great" relief that old lady Smith died,-isn’t
if?”
The object ;of suspicibn- apeared indifferent to the contempt in
which his friends held him. They could think anything they pleas<4±
but what if she .should hear and believe the re p o rt!^
Again Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery;' were driving along the fa
miliar road. Suddenly the husband caught a glimpse of an old wom
an sitting on that well known log. To him it seemed that the body
he had helped lay away, over .a year ago had been brought to life,
and as an accusation against him was sitting in the identical spot
where he had lastseCn it- in life&-„' Hej trembled violently and turned
■deathly white. A little boy, hitherto unnoticed by Montgomery,
cried o u t:
“Grandma, that’s the man that > left old lady Smith to die! I
seen him that very day.”
Montgomery "sank down apparently lifeless. He was sure that
the daughter knew the circumstances of the mother’s death. In
the, confusion of t h e ‘moment,, however, Clementine did not hear
what Tommy Minor had said, and she was -more perplexed than
•ever "as to the reason for her husband’s acting so strangely “Mr.
Montgomery has had a nervous break down/’ sheYfdM the neigh
bors.
Montgomery no longer assumed an attitude oi,indifference. He
rSeemed a?man who w as undergoing severest torture. ,>.T<> his credit